Looking for Science Poetry

Poetry month is just around the corner. Where will you look for poetry in April?

Sometimes poetry is just out your window. What do you see out your window? Maybe your garden or a pond. Maybe a pond or lake. Whatever you see, if you look closely, you will find poetry. In Outside Your Window: A First Book of Nature, biologist and children’s nature writer, Nicola Davies, has written a volume of poetry that is an invitation to look out your window and explore nature wherever you are. Through each season, there is something to see or hear, and, often, there is also something to do as Davies intersperses activities among the poems. What better way to share of love for nature and inspire even the youngest naturalists to observe the world around them than this lovely book of poems.

David Elliott and Holly Meade invite readers to look In the Sea in their latest collaboration, which shares the diversity of ocean life with clever poems and lovely woodcut illustrations. Like their previous books, On the Farm and In the Wild, this new picture book is great for group sharing. The poems read aloud well with a mix of science facts and creative wordplay. Perfect for those who dream of life under the sea!

Perhaps you are looking up for poetry—past the sky and clouds to the moon and stars. If that’s the case, Out of this World: Poems and Facts about Space is for you. This picture book brings poetry and prose together for an informative introduction to our universe from space travel to black holes. My personal favorite poem in this book turns the atmospheric layers into something that makes me smile: “Troposphere / Stratospehere / Mesophere / Thermosphere / Exosphere / (I’m outta here!) / S P A C E.” Set your students’ imaginations on a course for the stars with this book.

Wherever you look, be sure to look closely and appreciate the details of the world around you. Enjoy National Poetry Month!

Bibliography:

In the Sea by David Elliott. February 2012. 9780763644987. Gr PK-2.

Out of this World: Poems and Facts about Space by Amy Sklansky. February 2012. 9780375964596. Gr 1-3.

Outside Your Window: A First Book of Nature by Nicola Davies. February 2012. 9780763655495. Gr PK-2.

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